Kyrie Irving won a championship with the Cleveland Cavaliers and had previous stops with the Boston Celtics and Brooklyn Nets, but his time with the Dallas Mavericks stands out the most in his eyes.
“This has been the greatest … portion of my career,” Irving said Tuesday ahead of the NBA Finals, per Vincent Goodwill of Yahoo Sports. “To be able to now give wisdom and also speak from a place of experience. When you’re a young person, again, you’re trying to speed through life, you’re trying to get through everything.”
Irving’s career has been filled with ups and downs.
He became the face of the post-LeBron James Cleveland Cavaliers as the No. 1 overall pick of the 2011 NBA draft. Those teams struggled for three years until the King returned, which immediately made Cleveland a contender but also forced Irving to adapt to suddenly being a secondary option.
It produced some of the best moments in franchise history, including when Irving hit what proved to be the winning shot in crunch time of Game 7 of the NBA Finals against the 73-win Golden State Warriors.
However, he also asked for a trade after the 2016-17 season and ended up in Boston for two years. Those Celtics teams never delivered on championship expectations, and the eight-time All-Star was sidelined throughout the 2018 playoffs with an injury.
Irving then joined the Nets ahead of the 2018-19 season for a tenure that is largely remembered for the mistakes and disappointments. The trio of Kevin Durant, Irving and James Harden struggled to stay healthy and never produced a championship.
What’s more, Irving was also suspended during the 2022-23 campaign for promoting an antisemitic film on his social media accounts and then failing to apologize multiple times.
“Irving could’ve very well been out of the NBA, his reputation in tatters following a tweet of an antisemitic film that garnered weeks of controversy, an indefinite team suspension, demands from the Anti-Defamation League and condemnation all around the league,” Goodwill wrote.
However, he received another chance when the Nets traded him to the Mavericks last season.
The trade has certainly worked, as Irving and Luka Dončić have been an excellent combination for a team that is now just four wins over the Celtics away from lifting the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
The 32-year-old has assumed the role of a veteran leader, and that guidance will be all the more important in the Finals since Irving has played and thrived on this stage in the past.
It seems like he couldn’t be happier with how his time on the Mavericks has unfolded following some turbulent earlier stops in his career, and an NBA title would be something of a full-circle moment for him.